Mendelson's Memos

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

It would be all too easy to detail the ways in which Steven Spielberg'sJurassic Park was a game changer in the realm of summer blockbusters and major-studio releases in general. Its June 1993 release shattered a number of box office records and kicked off the glorious second act of Steven Spielberg's illustrious career. But the story is more complicated than that. Jurassic Park was a movie precisely of its time. In some ways it did lead the charge in terms of how films were made and released. In other ways, quite frankly, it was one of the last of its kind. Jurassic Park is perhaps a defining example of the perfect combination of newfangled and old-school blockbuster film-making. It represented both a preview of what was to come and the last gasp of traditional mainstream movie-making in one glorious concoction.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Disney announced two days ago that their new plans, having previously purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion, aren't just to make a new trilogy of Star Wars episodes, nor even to make a few spin-off films set in the same universe. No, they are planning to make one Star Wars movie every single year, with off-shoot films alternating with official new 'episodes'. How much Star Wars is too much Star Wars? The idea of a new trilogy of Star Wars films, set to debut ten years after the finale of the prequel trilogy, is perhaps also exciting, even as J.J. Abrams replacing George Lucas as the proverbial leader of this specific universe calls for cautious optimism (Is Star Wars without any real input from George Lucas really Star Wars? Discuss...). But how long will the casual fans remain excited about the prospect of new Star Wars films when they appear as frequently as Thanksgiving dinner for years and years on end?

Thursday, April 18, 2013

For much of the last six months, many hardcore Star Trek fans have been somewhat annoyed that the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness has been marketed as a somewhat generic grim-n-gritty 'dark sequel' focused not on space exploration but on Kirk and his crew pursuing a seemingly unstoppable super villain (Benedict Cumberbatch). I've jokingly referred to the marketing as Skyfall Into The Dark Knight, but the irony is that Paramount may now be regretting their 'sell this to generic action fans' approach. If, and this is a big "if", the perpetrator behind Monday's Boston Marathon attack turns out to be a domestic terrorist with a grudge against allegedly tyrannical government forces, how will Paramount handle their prime summer tent pole, which has been centered around a domestic terrorist with an apparent grudge against Starfleet blowing up populated areas? This is sadly not the first time we've had this kind of discussion. But it's worth noting that it's having to happen with increasing frequency.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

As I mentioned last week, the success of Guillermo del Toro's large-scale monsters vs. robots action tale Pacific Rim is at least partially predicated on how well-received the previous two months of summer films happen to be. This summer will mark the ten year anniversary of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. As most of you know, the Disney pirate adventure was a surprise of sorts, both in terms of its unexpected quality and its huge financial success. The film was a proverbial dark horse of summer 2003, a film based on pirates (box office poison!) starring Johnny Depp (usually box office poison way back when) and based on a theme park ride. On paper, the $130 million film was seemingly a recipe for disaster. But two things happened that summer. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was very good and a large portion of the May/June summer releases were not. As such, by early July, summer movie audiences were primed for a would-be tent-pole that actually delivered the goods. Gore Verbinski's pirate adventure was the one we were waiting for, and audiences responded accordingly with a $73 million five-day opening and a $303 million final domestic total.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

I could easily spoil the vast majority of Oblivion merely by listing the various science fiction films from which it cribs. From visual cues to plot beats and character arcs, it feels like a mash-up of the various high-profile science fiction thrillers from the last few decades. But almost despite itself, the film works anyway as its own beast. Yes the characters are thin and the screenplay doesn't have too much going on underneath the hood, but the film is an absolute visual delight. Universal originally planned to release this film in America last Friday for an exclusive IMAX-only week-long engagement and it's easy to see why. The film features absolutely fantastic special effects, yet offers the pleasure of being able to believe your eyes more often than not. Director Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion may be a triumph of style over substance, but the picture *is* a triumph of style, with strong acting that helps overcome the lack of substance. Sometimes visual imagination coupled with strong acting is enough. The end of the world never looked so beautiful.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Just a few years ago, had I written a piece entitled "There are no films guaranteed to gross $1 billion this year", you likely would have laughed and said "Of course not!". As recently as 2010, the idea that any movie could or would gross $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales was somewhat of a pipe dream. From 1997 to 2006, there were just two films to reach that milestone, they beingTitanic (the biggest movie of all-time with a seemingly insurmountable $1.8 billion) andThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the Oscar-winning chapter to what can be argued is the finest screen trilogy of our time (that's a debate for another day). In 2006, we saw the powerhouse success ofPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest which parlayed the unexpected popularity of the first film into an even larger haul for its sequel, breaking the domestic opening weekend record at the time ($135 million) and earning a massive $423 million in America and $642 million overseas. In 2008,The Dark Knight pulled another "massively popular sequel to unexpectedly well-liked original" trick to the tune of $533 million in America (good for the second biggest grosser of all time in America, if only for a year) and just over $1 billion worldwide despite not playing inChina due to that pesky "Chinese gangster hides Gotham mob money" subplot. 2009 saw James Cameron do that trick that James Camerondoes yet again, withAvatar earning $1 billion worldwide in about seventeen days and going on to earn an eye-popping $2.7 billion.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Here's an odd statistic: Despite baseball being theoretically America's national past time and being the subject of any number of feature films over the decades, not a single baseball-themed film has ever opened at over $20 million. Not until today that is, when the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 (review HERE) opened with a surprisingly robust $27.3 million. Not only is that the biggest baseball opening weekend on record, it's the biggest baseball-themed opening weekend even when adjusted for inflation (in 2013 dollars, A League of Their Own has a debut of $26.6 million). This is good news for the somewhat beleaguered Warner Bros, which has seen the disappointing returns for Bullet to the Head, Beautiful Creatures, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (all well under $25 million in domestic totals). The film scored a rock-solid 3.0x weekend multiplier and a somewhat rare A+ score from the audience polling service CinemaScore. The film played 52% male and 83% 25-and-older. So yeah, the $38 million production is likely going to have long legs at least for the month of April with a trip over the $100 million mark a genuine possibility.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

As I mentioned last week, the success of Guillermo del Toro's large-scale monsters vs. robots action tale Pacific Rim is at least partially predicated on how well-received the previous two months of summer films happen to be. This summer will mark the ten year anniversary of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. As most of you know, the Disney pirate adventure was a surprise of sorts, both in terms of its unexpected quality and its huge financial success. The film was a proverbial dark horse of summer 2003, a film based on pirates (box office poison!) starring Johnny Depp (usually box office poison way back when) and based on a theme park ride. On paper, the $130 million film was seemingly a recipe for disaster. But two things happened that summer. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was very good and a large portion of the May/June summer releases were not. As such, by early July, summer movie audiences were primed for a would-be tent-pole that actually delivered the goods. Gore Verbinski's pirate adventure was the one we were waiting for, and audiences responded accordingly with a $73 million five-day opening and a $303 million final domestic total.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Neill Blomkamp's Elysium holds the distinction of being among the very last, if not *the* very last major summer tentpole picture to release a trailer. The Matt Damon/Jodie Foster futuristic thriller is scheduled to open on August 9, 2013 from Tri-Star Pictures. This is the first real look at the film, and frankly it's a pretty decent trailer. If I'm not as over-the-moon about it as other, it's because the visuals feels awfully video game-esque and the 136-second clip offers so little plot that it basically presumes that we'll want our hero (Matt Damon) to succeed in his goal (reaching Elysium, the above-Earth utopia where the rich and privileged live above the destitute masses still residing on a ravaged Earth) purely because he's established as our lead character and he's played by a movie star. Still, the imagery looks impressive and rather large-scale, as befitting the man who made the $30 million District 9 look like a $150 million production. And that there is so little plot revealed only means that the moviegoer remains that much-more unspoiled at this point in the marketing cycle. So now here's my challenge to Tri-Star: No more video-based marketing before August 9, 2013!

We don't need another full-length trailer that spoils the plot, explicitly establishes character relationships, and ends with a 45-second montage of money shots. We don't need character posters laying out who the major players are. We don't need spoiler-filled television spots that contain Matt Damon protecting children or kissing a girl in a cynical attempt to stereo-typically appeal to female moviegoers. The studio already has two minutes of footage to pick from to make a handful of TV spots. We don't need featurettes, either released online or as part of an in-theater promotion, that contains major sequences and talking head interviews of the stars and filmmakers discussing their characters or the moral of the story. We don't need interviews where the filmmakers discuss their potential sequel plans and/or who does or doesn't survive to return for said sequel. And we absolutely don't need Tri-Star to release 10% of the finished film online in the weeks prior to release in the form of stand-alone 'clips'. The trailer above does its job almost perfectly.

The trailer above establishes the world, introduces its two main characters, tells you who is in Elysium and who is making it, and establishes the core journey. We've been teased. We don't need to be spoiled. If Tri-Star has the courage to show restraint, they can establish a new precedent for marketing major studio releases. They can say "We know we have the goods, we don't need to give away the store to convince you to shop inside". The film is expensive, but at just $90-$100 million, it doesn't need to be a world-changing blockbuster to make a profit. Tri-Star can take the risk that letting moviegoers discover the film's pleasures for themselves will pay off in a superior audience reaction and superior word-of-mouth after opening weekend. But a certain restraint, both in quantity and "quality" of marketing materials can pay off accordingly. Marvel/Disney has already failed the test several times over with Iron Man 3, giving away what should have been a major surprise in a targeted television spot. Universal seemingly didn't think audiences would *really* want to see Fast & Furious 6 unless they released a 3-minute long trailer that basically laid out the entire plot.

Warner Bros. has the chance to do it right with The Hangover part III, with the main plot and major story beats hidden in secrecy just over a month prior to release (hopefully this week's trailer won't be spoiler-ific). They also have released two trailers for Man of Steel that still shows barely a glimmer of the last two acts of the film. Paramount is seemingly hiding the goods with Star Trek Into Darkness, but I'd argue that only works if the film's laughable "Dark Knight into Skyfall" marketing scheme is merely misdirection (spoiler - Benedict Cumberbatch was planning to get caught!). Tri-Star doesn't have to spoil the entire movie and its various pleasures just to entice the very moviegoers who were likely already set to buy their tickets. The clips and spoiler-filled red-band trailers are in fact targeting the converted, yet the effect is spoilage for everyone.

So from here on out, here's the challenge: No more stills, no more trailers, no featurettes, no clips, and no TV spots that divulge any more plot than what's already been revealed. It will save the studio a decent amount of money (cutting three trailers, a dozen TV spots, and several featurettes costs a lot more money than cutting one trailer and three TV spots) and will (I'd argue) pay off in terms of audience satisfaction after the all-important opening weekend. Elysium, by virtue of its modest budget and strong initial teaser, would make a fine test case for the less-is-more principal of film marketing. We don't need to see everything before we buy our ticket. And I'd argue we wouldn't miss the total spoilage if it magically went away. What say you? Is the 'show everything!' mentality a necessary evil in the realm of tent-pole marketing or is it merely an unnecessary expense designed to preach to the previously converted?

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Writer/director Brian Helgeland's 42 is an openly earnest and sentimental bit of old-school hokum. It is the kind of studio programmer biopic that was once a standard issue release, and it is absolutely successful in its respective goals. It doesn't aim to be an all-encompassing epic of race relations in the 1940's, nor does it even strive to use the Jackie Robinson story as a grand statement on the eventual Civil Rights movement to come, even as its characters are all-too-aware of the color barrier being broken. It masks a certain subtly and nuance beyond sweeping music and sometimes obvious monologues. Released in April instead of October or November, it is surely not intended to win Oscars but merely to tell an educational story to a generation for whom its significance may have lessened over the years.

Because it is possible to re-edit essays after they have been posted, please feel free to alert me to any typos, grammar issues, and questions of factual accuracy, preferably by email and not in the comments section. And, also, since I often embed video clips, please let me know if any said clips are no longer functioning. Thanks.

About Me

The basics - 31 years old, married with two children, currently residing in Woodland Hills, CA. I am simply a longtime film critic and pundit of sorts, especially in the realm of box office. The main content will be film reviews, trailer reviews, essays, and box office analysis and comparison. I also syndicate myself at The Huffington Post, Valley Scene Magazine, and Open Salon.
I will update as often as my schedule allows. Yes, I'm on Facebook/Twitter/LinkIn, so feel free to find me there. All comments are appreciated, just be civil and try to keep a level discourse, as I will make every effort to do the same.